Zagreb – Reading the City

Change of Scale

Located on the outskirts, the allotments enjoy all benefits: the easy out of town, the easy acces with agricultural products from hinterland, enough marketplace, a barrier to city which clearly established the

border between urban and rural. Actually, the city acces square remained the sign of development. Finding a concept for Badel site development depend on this square and depend on evolution of its functions.

The assets of the site has lost by the development and transformations of the city: the immpresive size of the new modern city, the new high-speed avenues, the cars invasion.. The city acces square became

crowded for the major axes of the city. Once new neiberhoods appeared, the free space disapeared and the marketplace moved to sidewalks or to accidentally remaining unbuilt spaces. The marketplace invade the

garden city and has his own dedicated island. This island seems not to be a marketplace

destination!

THE AGRICULTURAL MARKETPLACE DISAPPEARED

On his turn, the marketplace as a city barrier disappeared and becomes a flower

market and a traffic market. Only the grid street keeps in memory the city acces and the old

border between urban and rural.

THE MARKETPLACE DESAPPEARED

The two markets have desappeared but the typical city acces agglomeration did not.

This is the Badel site context.

Urban regeneration

Hire, the power of urban regeneration it’s the diversity accessibility of the site. The

acces in the area it’s more easy now by car or by tram (or other public transportation) and less

by a green texture from the city centre and more less by a pedestrian acces. The site it’s

closed to pedestrian and open only for utility vehicles.

On one hand we have the oportunity to develop a connection between the inner

islands of the city. This help to improve connections with the central parks and to develop a

possible pedestrian circuit in the city. On the other hand, stabilizing the existing park by

moving the flywheel market allows to create a equivalent park with the central one, so a new

landmark in the area.

Therefore, to create accesibility in to the neighborhood meens to openthe site for the

pedestrian from the west and to connect the site to the park from the south.

1.THE SITE MUST BE OPENED TO THE PEDESTRIAN BY WEST PART

2.THE SITE MUST BE OPENED TO THE PARK BY SOUTH PART

THE CONCEPT

The concept open the site. An open site can organise all the problems creating a central pole of interest.

The island reabsorbed all remaining functions without development space: the agricultural marketplace, the flywheel market, the flower market; restoring freed areas to their current purpose without the old

city parasites. The acces square remains auto traffic square, the old flywheel market becomes park development area and green texture, the park recovers entierty.

With this new functions, the Badel site becomes point of interest for auto traffic, for the pedestrian, shopping or loisir traffic. The new functions will create the new traffic. To improve also the city financial

development, the concept commes also with some office areas with controled accesibility and visibility, but with undoubtedly necessary class A services.

To gather in one place the park, the pedestrians, the marketplace, the flower market, the offices it’s our goal! To weave them, to animate them, to give meaning to the city, to make a recognizable point of

interest for the Zagreb citizens.

For the size of the city, the horizontal space is insufficient. We need a vertical development. From hire the concept:

A SANDWICH COMPOSED FROM UNDERGROUND PARKING PLACES, PEDESTRIAN SQUARE WITH AGRICULTURAL MARKETPLACE AND FLOWER MARKET ON THE GROUND FLOOR, A SUSPENDED PARK AT THE

FIRST FLOOR AND A PUBLIC SQUARE WITH A REPRESENTATIVE SQUARE ON TOP OF THE OFFICE SPACES (TURNED INSIDE) ON THE SECOND FLOOR

To fully comply the with the propose scheme we introduce the green texture going up from the park an the monument in the representative square. The green axis link the park with the pedestrian area and

allows the crossing of our island from city centre to the park.

The monument it’s the central piece for the public square and in the same time it’s the urban landmark for the place: the jellyfish-dome, the plexus which animates, the compulsion for the area; a discovery

place, a representativity place. An object that by its shape remembered by the distillation.

Description of the concept

The entire building is opened with some exceptions: the office floor, the AKRO building (who converts into a big gallery

acces hall for the offices, for the park and for the market), the vertical accesses (most of them located in the old distilery building,

at the bottom of the jelly-fish).

The building is decomposed in four volumetrical elements according to the park axis and to the pedestrian axis:

• the east zone, independent, closing the front blocks that form the corner of the island. The east side of the

building is related to the main building by a bridge who mediates the crossing between the park and the private

space behind the owners building.

• The south zone, composed by the AKRO building (we restored the original facade and we completed the building

with a grrenhouse-hall that is serving all the levels and gives free acces to a commercial gallery). From the glass

hall we get out at different levels of the building – in the park, to the offices, to the marketplace.

• The north side of the building closes the back of the attached biuilding lots and creates closed areas who

accompany the pedestrian area or allow the continuity of the park or of the marketplace. At the grounfloor we

find a restaurants gallery open for the two squares accompanying the pedestrian area.

• The fourth volume, the volume who links the entire assembly is composed by the distileries old structure on which

we build the new respirator of the area – the jellyfish. The building takes new alembics by creating on its floors

some vertical circulation and exhibition areas and kiosks. Four elevators who are also the vertical structure of the

jellyfish goes out from the roof and create an exclusive office area inside the dome. A panoramic spiral gives

pedestrian acces to the jellyfish. External or internal walkways connect the central node to circulated platforms

transforming the old distilery building in the center hub of the entire building.

At the basement are located the parking and the technical spaces; the two vertical nodes –the

distillery and the AKRO greenhouse unifies the upper parking structures

The ground floor is built around the two axes-the pedestrian line and the green axis which are

geometrically intersect in the lawn of the park.

The pedestrian line begins at the west side with a little square with kiosks, bordered by stairs that climb

on the exterior to the upper platforms. Besides the newspaper kiosks the square has terraces from the

restaurants on the north side. All over the south area is spread the animation and the noise of the

market. Passing by the old distillery, one can arrive into the second square where we reposition the

flower market. Besides, here we also kept the façade of an old warehouse and we created a new

greenhouse which purpose is to sell flowers; the façade that we kept is a good example of fachwerk

from the industrial era, which deserves a place in the continuity of the old industrial site. Therefore,

the second square is a flower and a terrace one. The passage to the lawn of the park is made through

the flower market. On the other side of the park, in the eastern building there are commercial spaces

and animation for the park.

On the first floor is situated the suspended park. It is uniform and has green islands, rest areas

and some belvedere points towards the crowded boulevards. Most of the plants here are shadow ones,

grown on vertical support.

The second floor, for offices, is a compact volume of four meters high, which has no windows

on the exterior perimeter. The natural light comes from the cylindrical patios which also allows

magnificent views toward the suspended park.. Two distribution halls –one from the AKRO greenhouse

amphitheater and the other from the interior of the old distillery – are dedicated to the office area. The

utility of the office area –besides the financial one- becomes huge if one can picture here some

governmental agencies or local ones. In this way all the spaces will be available for public use and the

views could be admired by all the people coming by.

The space of the upper terrace takes its strength from the view inside the patios and it is

dominated by the monumental dome to which it stands like a pedestal. It is situated at the same height

as the buildings in the neighborhood so, from this terrace you have a panoramic view of the city.

The main piazza is dominated by the jellyfish, whose three stores are open on all sides. In the

summer hot days the jellyfish becomes a huge water sprayer which provides the microclimate of the entire building, creating in the same time a fourth level between the dome and the sandwich: the cloud that divides

the horizontals from the verticality of the dome.